


Reforged in flame

by Fiamma



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Dark Iron Clan, One Shot, POV First Person, Short One Shot, dark iron dwarves - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:00:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24554278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fiamma/pseuds/Fiamma
Summary: My stomach was revolting at the stench of something burnt which had started oozing from inside, sending another wave over the rows every time the door opened, but it wasn’t until I realized our row was next that I truly felt like vomiting.A shriek of chains and a god-awful sizzle.Then the door opened again and for the first time I was hit by the impossible heat that radiated out of that doorway. My skin prickled and my breath hitched as it washed over me until I felt dizzy, the only anchor to the world my mother's hand. It still held me like a vice but I had become numb to the pain.____Criostoir recounts her experience of the corruption of the Dark Iron clan to a travelling historian.





	Reforged in flame

I still remember it, clear as day. When my kin and I were reforged. When the decision had been final, and we were all doomed.

I was young, although I don't know my exact age so I cannot tell you with certainty what year we were .. transformed. I’m sure it’s written down somewhere although I don't care to check.

I remember being awoken far earlier than I should have been and rushed downstairs where my mother robed me and whispered little praises into my ears. I remember being confused, but I don't remember asking what was going on.

I suppose by then I knew better than to question their decisions.

So when my father’s face hardened and my parents nodded to each other, I followed their march out of our house and into the hall of the shadowforge. There we found several of our kin waiting for us. The dark bodies moving about and whispering to each other, congregating outside of the smelting room; the enormous door to which was ever so slightly ajar and the ever-present glow of the magma inside cascaded unto the dark iron faces which crowded near it. 

My mother held my hand so tightly it hurt, and my father was engaging in a nervous conversation with another man I recognized as someone who lived in the same part of the city as us. 

My mother simply stared at the crack in the door, her expression schooled but I remember seeing a sort of apprehension in her eyes. It blended with her determination. 

The cloying ever-present heat of the forge pressed down on us from all sides, further aided by the amount of bodies surrounding us and as we waited there I desperately tried to swallow my questions and be a good child. I could feel sweat running down my back by the time the hall fell silent and the door was pushed open.

There was a command shouted overhead, and my mother dragged me into a line of other dark irons, her hand almost slipping on my soaked skin. Along the length of the hall, line upon line of dwarves formed, a myriad of feelings displayed on the faces I could see despite my conviction that any sign of cowardice was a punishable offense.

The first five lines were marched into the smelting room, and we were told to wait. The door slammed shut and left us in darkness. No one dared move and the silence was deafening. Far off, at the back of the hall, I thought i heard someone cry, but it was quickly silenced.

There was no sounds from inside, nothing which could give a clue to our fate, but somehow I knew that everyone around me knew what was about to happen, even as I stood there in complete ignorance. 

There was a shriek of heavy chains and then a sizzle, like flesh on hot coals and my mother gripped my hand just that little bit tighter. 

The door opened a few minutes later and the next few rows were ordered inside. The process repeated; silence then a heavy shriek, the sizzle of meat and silence until the door opened.

My stomach was revolting at the stench of something burnt which had started oozing from inside, sending another wave over the rows every time the door opened, but it wasn’t until I realized our row was next that I truly felt like vomiting.

A shriek of chains and a god-awful sizzle.

Then the door opened again and for the first time I was hit by the impossible heat that radiated out of that doorway. My skin prickled and my breath hitched as it washed over me until I felt dizzy, the only anchor to the world my mother's hand. It still held me in a vice but I had become numb to the pain.

We were marched into the room row by row and positioned in one of the square pits usually meant for casting. In front of us hung a large smelting-pot, easily twice the size of our house, suspended from two enormous metal chains that disappeared into the darkness of the mountain. Everything in here was blurry due to heat and anything I tried to focus on danced and transformed before my eyes until it was unrecognizable. My mouth was dry and I realized I was shaking.

Surrounding us were living fires, four on each side of the pit and as their vacant, churning eyes bore down on us I didn't manage to conceal a small noise of terror to which I received a slap on the back of my head from my father who had positioned himself to my left. The ‘thwap’ sounded wetter than it shouldve been, and the force made my head swim.

There was silence for a while, as there had been the previous times. Magma churned below the platform and in the several smelting pots which sat suspended above and around us, an awful bubbling sound as puffs of gas made its way to the surface and made it even more difficult to breathe.

Finally, I was alerted to a chancellor who had climbed atop a podium in front of the casting pit. He stood now, arms raised to either side, the churning magma of the pot silhouetting him from behind as it slowly tipped over, eliciting that horrifying shriek of chains I remembered from outside. 

The chancellor was mumbling something, and dark magic swirled around his hands and mixed with the slow torrent of death which was threatening to spill over the metal lip of the pot. I watched in terror as i realized how _wrong_ he looked. His skin was matte and impossibly pale despite the dark color, his beard singed and for a moment I was convinced that where his eyes were meant to be was simply two holes bored through his skull, spilling out the magma from behind him. So empty and swirling and bubbling and full of something burnt, flowing over his cheeks and illuminating the sick smile he wore as his chanting reached its crescendo and the magma spilled into the trenches which would carry it to our feet.

I took a step backward as fear clawed its way through my heat-dizzied head and I felt my father grip my arm and the vice that was my mothers hand hold me in place. Their nails dug into my skin as I writhed and whimpered but my throat was so dry no sounds would come out. The molten rock reached the feet of the front-most row and the people I knew I had known since birth were instantly set ablaze. I tried to breathe but the air was thick and burned my lungs and I thought I might have cried had the tears not evaporated the moment they left me.

Then the sizzle reached my ears as the magma finally lapped at our feet. I looked to my father and saw he had closed his eyes, a horrifying mimicry of the chancellors sick smile spread on his lips and his hand on my arm laxed. I did not get the chance to look to my mother, whose hand had also fallen away, before I was swallowed by the churning, bubbling sea at my feet and the fire consumed me. 

The pain was indescribable, so hot it felt cold, making my blood boil and my skin bubble. I felt my robe incinerate and my hair burn away almost instantly. But I could not scream as magma poured into my throat when I tried to open my mouth. It found every opening it could reach and tunneled into my body. Where it found no easy entrance, it created one, boring into my flesh and I felt as though it evaporated my bones as it found them. 

One by one, until I wasn’t sure if i had a body anymore. 

I floated there, in that pit of burning, white heat for what could have been eons, feeling lost and alone and mourning my own death, wondering what life without pain even felt like.

Until a roar came through the heat, the only clear thing in this hazy nothingness. It bade me obey, to join its will and to be reforged in flame. I could do nothing but attempt to nod a head I wasn’t sure was there. It was apparently enough to give me some small relief as I became suddenly aware that I was given lungs with which to breathe, arms with which to flail and legs with which to swim until finally I felt steady ground under my feet. 

As the magma drained from the pit around me, I was given eyes with which to see and I saw the elementals which still surrounded us, their eyes no longer vacant or primal, but full of recognition and excitement. I was no longer afraid of them, a knowledge that I had sworn allegiance to them built into the very bones I now inhabited. I knew I was one of them, and they a part of me. I knew they were my masters and I, their willing pawn.

It took me a shivering moment, as my body rose from the ground along with the myriad of others, to realize that I was cold. So used to the searing heat, I now curled in on myself, shaking and naked along with the rest of my kin. I felt drawn to the elementals and the gentle heat which emanated from their forms and drew me in, promising safety and purpose. 

The chancellor still remained on his little podium, his arms now tucked behind his back as he smiled down at us, his glowing eyes fastened on no one individual in particular and he welcomed us into the new clan. A better clan, a stronger clan.

Looking around I could not recognize the people surrounding me, my parents nowhere to be seen, but I knew somehow, that I would not be able to recognize them even if they had been stood right next to me. 

I wondered if they would be able to recognize me.

I wondered if I would be able to recognize my own reflection.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> You can find more of this gremlin on my twitter:  
> https://twitter.com/Fiamma1221s/status/1254891834209382402


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